It’s quite simple, folks. If you act like you can’t be f*cked with, people will (usually) not f*ck with you.
While my friend Anjali and I were on a trip to Montréal — one that I wouldn’t shut up about to my then colleagues at the UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, namely because I had paid for the trip using the money I earned from there, or to the residents who I am resident advising, as resident advisors do — we ran into some strange people.
Take this long-winded example that is the premise of this post.
I really wanted to go visit the local Costco on our last day in Montréal, because I love Costco and I thought it would be ironic to take a photo at a foreign one. It’d be kind of like collecting shot glasses or magnets as souvenirs, I reasoned.
(Secretly I do still want a photo in front of the local Costco at every international destination I find myself in. Ah, the joys of American consumerism taking over the world….yay capitalism.)
But, we’d already spent the whole night exploring McGill University (a.k.a. sneaking into the RVC dining hall, having our American debit cards declined and then finding a very nice student suddenly swiping her card for our meals – Avis, if you are reading this, you gave us the wrong phone number to pay you back, but we are very grateful…) and watching a movie at a theater close to the McGill campus. I also ate some delicious Lebanese kebabs smack dab in the middle of downtown at midnight. That was fun.
So we made an attempt at going to the Costco at around 2 a.m., which didn’t end up working out very well. After taking a metro to a different part of downtown and walking for something like 20 minutes, we deserted our plans once we realized to get to the Costco, we’d have to walk through this super sketchy alley that didn’t look particularly… enticing, if that is the right word.
I admittedly cursed at myself a lot that night, because the hike to the bus stop that would get us back to our Airbnb was very long, treacherous, and did-I-mention-that-we-were-walking-around-a-foreign-city-at-some-ungodly-hour. My mom was going to kill me if she heard about this. The city was dark, and though there were very few people out, the ones who were out were either drunk or smelled potently of weed. Skyscrapers loomed over us in every direction, and with each passing step my legs grew more and more weary. My phone, conveniently, died in the middle of our trek (thanks, Apple.) I think I even spotted a few street rats.
Anyways, we finally reached the street where our bus stop was. I explicitly remember some woman in a long orange gypsy skirt and her boyfriend or husband or whatever displaying excessive PDA in front of a nearby building (I do not know why that memory sticks out.) We skirted around the strange couple and sat down on a ledge beside the bus stop, when a group of four seemingly inebriated guys walked up to us (cue: dramatic groan.)
Here’s the thing though. If you’ve ever been the weird kid in middle school or high school, you probably very quickly realized that people like to irritate you more the more visibly you are irritated. The same applies in several other life situations, I have learned.
So one of the dudes walks up to us and asks, “Are you girls going to school?”
To which I respond, “No, we were going to Costco.” He laughed at that.
By that point, Anjali and I had already faced an uncomfortable situation together. I’d told her to avoid giving away that she was intimidated, and in this instance she was doing a pretty good job of looking nonchalant. When he asked us where we were from, she told him that we were Canadians (which was not true, obviously.) I would have come up with a different lie, but I think she did a decent job in the moment.
He then sits down next to me, and moments after asking whether I was going to school or not, tells me that I am very good looking and that he would like my Snapchat. Does thou see the problem here?
I flat out told the man no. I told him that I was uncomfortable giving him my Snapchat. And he left. And even though Anjali and I heaved sighs of relief after he left, in the moment we were very cognizant of simply answering his questions in a straightforward manner, pretending to listen and acting like we did not give a flying f*ck.
I have no idea what the moral of this story is and why I just wrote it. Being young is weird, and I wonder whether I will feel more in control of strange situations when I’m like 40 years old or something. But for now, if you are a fellow teenager and are intent on visiting a foreign country and find yourself in a weird place, do yourself a favor and at least pretend you know what you’re doing. Because that’s a core facet of being an adult, it seems.